Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Update long time in coming

I haven't been as active in the last ~ yearish or so. Combination of work, new baby (funny how that works), and generally making our way through the system. I just wanted to give an update in case there are people out there starting the process or long-timers just curious about "whatever happened to JBDad?"

As a refresher, I began posting here asking questions about our then DS5 who seems to be a little bit advanced in math and reading. After a lot of thought and some testing, we decided to have him enter first grade early effectively skipping K. First grade was rough probably more from the perspective of a child who's still very young and still sometimes needs naps coupled with the fact that it was still a bit of a mismatch with the reading and to a much greater extent, the math. Socially he's fit in pretty well.

Second grade was a better year. The teacher really got DS (then 6). It took half of the year of advocating, but for the last three months of second grade, DS did the rest of third grade math. So the second half of second grade was the best experience we've had so far. Just took a very long time to get there.

This summer was pretty amazing and per usual where DS (now 7) made more leaps than during the school year. He read just about anything he could get his hands on including How to Train Your Dragon series, The Chronicles of Prydain series, and Life of Fred. His math is pretty far out there. Last year about this time he was old enough to take a math achievement test and had DYS numbers. (His IQ scores don't qualify--or maybe more accurately what he is good at is not measured well by the IQ test.) I cannot imagine where he is now. He jumped ahead on LoF to algebra but we actually had him go back to the first book, read through them, and do the bridges. Since he enjoys the stories as much as the math, he didn't have a problem with that. His typical routine was he'd read during "quiet time" when our other two children were napping. Some days it was Chronicles of Prydain. Some days--particularly the last several weeks--it's been LoF.

So of course we enter the time of the year when we have to adjust to a new teacher, find out about our continuity plan (we're going to ask for re-evaluation because he should test out of fourth grade math), and start the advocacy again. Not entirely our most favorite time of the year.

But anyways, that's where we're at. We're having some recent success with advocating, and we're hoping that this year will be as good as last.

JB

It's good to hear from you, JB! I'm crossing my fingers that with experience under your belt, advocacy will start to become easier.

It's good to hear from you, JBDad. I was wondering about how you were doing.

My daughter's course is parallel to your son's, only she's a year younger (turned six over the weekend!). She skipped K and was fortunate to be attending a school where they also let her do 2nd grade reading/LA/spelling last year. School is starting on Wednesday, and we'll be adjusting to a new teacher as well. I bought some second grade math Singapore math workbooks for her last week and she's surprised me --- a lot of it is trivially easy for her, yet she didn't do any math over the summer.

Val

Hi JB -
congrats on the family expansion and the 2nd half of 2nd grade!

Good luck with Advocacy - it does usually get easier. Hopefully the 2nd grade teacher will 'have a little chat' with the new teacher - it always sounds better coming from a peer, doesn't it?

Great to see you -
Grinity

Thanks. It was definitely with a lot of help and advice from people here. In fact, a lot of what has gone well for us are resources that I found here. I'm going to have to try to catch up! We've had great luck with things like Murderous Maths, Horrible Histories, Life of Fred, Dragon's Slayer Academy, and a lot lot more.

Unfortunately I'm not quite to optimistic about the handoff from second to third grade. Last year when our teacher tried to borrow a third grade teacher's book before we had the GIEP updated whoever she talked with wouldn't lend it to her (!). Not sure what the whole story there was. The good thing was the director of pupil services and the math coordinator (district wide, not just for our school) seem to want to keep DS engaged and keep continuity with his individualized curriculum. We did have outside tests that stated he understood some math concepts as well as a high schooler* so I think that helped. I think it was actually a wake up call of sorts that yes, he's pretty gifted with math.

JB

* Keep in mind that those tests are age based not out of level testing. Doesn't mean he can do high school level math... yet

We had this problem when my ten-year-old was in second grade. I've told this story before but...in case you haven't read it:


Getting a third-grade level book for DS's book of the week was a real challenge, in spite of the fact that he'd done the second grade books the previous year. Finally, the 3rd grade teacher gave him a book and a book report form one Monday. He read the book and handed in a book report on Friday. I mentioned this to the 3rd grade teacher after the weekend, and asked her "Okay, what's the new book of the week?" She paused and said, "Oh...that was a three-week project for the third grade."

Everything --- EVERYTHING --- changed after that. Somehow, when he surpassed their own expectations for older kids, they saw his abilities in a different light. They offered him a skip not too long afterwards.

Hang in there,

Val

Go figure ... we already have some parent homework to do. Assuming that the position is replaced--and I'm not sure it will be--we will be dealing with our third math coordinator in that many years. Apparently the person that we worked with last year is no longer with the school admin. It's a shame too because she was very enthusiastic about addressing DS's math and continuity. DW has called the director of pupil services, and we will be essentially going through this again. DW was polite but direct pointing out that last year it took until December just to get the baseline.

It can be a frustrating system. On paper, in their system he's clearly already done and passed third grade math. But unless we initiate it, I doubt anything would be done.

JB